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woolytoad
Skeptic Friend
313 Posts |
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
 Posted - 01/18/2005 : 15:32:17 [Permalink]
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Well. Explains the awkward glances I get when I tell I'm studying computer science... also explains why my boys are distraught when I kick their collective asses at math and electronic classes without a single drop of sweat |
"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa
"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 01/18/2005 : 15:51:54 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by woolytoad
http://www.local6.com/education/4090001/detail.html
I wonder how skeptics here will respond to this.
I note that the presentations that happened before him directly refuted many of his unsupported assertations. He's an about to be out of work college president. |
Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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Isaiah
Skeptic Friend
USA
83 Posts |
Posted - 01/18/2005 : 16:09:43 [Permalink]
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4183495.stm
quote:
Richard Freeman, the organiser of the conference, held at the National Bureau of Economic Research, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said Dr Summers had been asked to be provocative.
Dr Freeman told the Globe: "I predict he will get more things done on women and faculty issues because he's a straight-talking, no-baloney president."
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For Real Things I Know - http://solomonj.blogspot.com
"My point is, that you cannot use lack of evidence for one possibility as proof for another." - Dude
“I would rather delude myself with comforting fantasies than face a cold reality” - Isaiah, altered from astropin |
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Robb
SFN Regular
USA
1223 Posts |
Posted - 01/20/2005 : 08:12:37 [Permalink]
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I think he is off base with his comment, but it brings up a question that I have had from college. Why is there so few women in engineering? In my class, women were only 5% of the students. Where I work there are about the same percentage of women engineers and a women engineer has not applied at our company in over 6 months. I don't think it has anything to do with their math or science ability but there is a reason. Is it that the work doesn't appeal to women as much? Any thoughts?
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Wendy
SFN Regular
USA
614 Posts |
Posted - 01/20/2005 : 08:46:14 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Robb
I think he is off base with his comment, but it brings up a question that I have had from college. Why is there so few women in engineering? In my class, women were only 5% of the students. Where I work there are about the same percentage of women engineers and a women engineer has not applied at our company in over 6 months. I don't think it has anything to do with their math or science ability but there is a reason. Is it that the work doesn't appeal to women as much? Any thoughts?
I'm just throwing this out there, but I'd guess it has to do with how women feel they would be perceived in the workplace. Male nurses still take flak for doing what is traditionally a job done by women. Women still worry they will receive unwanted attention in a profession dominated by men, or that their sexuality will be called into question. My best friend's husband is an engineer. His firm employs one woman in that capacity, and he says she is universally disliked. Could just be her personality. I know of other examples, but I don't want to derail the topic.
As far as the Harvard study goes, they could prove it by me. I'm lousy at math. My daughter, however, has been doing math for fun since kindergarten. She is presently enrolled in two math courses at her high school, one above her current grade level. She has A's in both.
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Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do on a rainy afternoon.
-- Susan Ertz
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 01/20/2005 : 08:50:41 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Robb
I think he is off base with his comment, but it brings up a question that I have had from college. Why is there so few women in engineering? In my class, women were only 5% of the students. Where I work there are about the same percentage of women engineers and a women engineer has not applied at our company in over 6 months. I don't think it has anything to do with their math or science ability but there is a reason. Is it that the work doesn't appeal to women as much? Any thoughts?
Society has a number of gender roles. There are few women in engineering becuase the societal gender roles have determined that women should not be engineers. Those women who refuse to conform to the gender roles foisted upon them by society can become engineers.
Siberia is an example of the societal pressures against her for studying math and science. She chooses to defy them and is happier for it. However, causing ackward glances and distraught people over ones abilities and chosen field of study is not something that is particularly pleasant. |
Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 01/20/2005 : 10:06:12 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Valiant Dancer
Society has a number of gender roles. There are few women in engineering becuase the societal gender roles have determined that women should not be engineers. Those women who refuse to conform to the gender roles foisted upon them by society can become engineers.
Just playing devils advocate here Valiant, but are you sure about that? Is it society selecting gender roles? Or is it natural ability that creates the societal gender roles. Is it possible that in general males have certain strengths in certain fields while women have strengths in others, and that these are brought about by genetic factors not societal ones? Not to say that their is not allot of overlapping, certainly there is. There are female physicists and there are even a few males out there that can multi-task . |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 01/20/2005 : 10:27:36 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by astropin
quote:
Originally posted by Valiant Dancer
Society has a number of gender roles. There are few women in engineering becuase the societal gender roles have determined that women should not be engineers. Those women who refuse to conform to the gender roles foisted upon them by society can become engineers.
Just playing devils advocate here Valiant, but are you sure about that? Is it society selecting gender roles? Or is it natural ability that creates the societal gender roles. Is it possible that in general males have certain strengths in certain fields while women have strengths in others, and that these are brought about by genetic factors not societal ones? Not to say that their is not allot of overlapping, certainly there is. There are female physicists and there are even a few males out there that can multi-task.
Yes, I am confident in it. There are some societies which have different gender roles that are counter to the ones we know. It appears that this particular aspect is primarily nurture, not nature. |
Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 01/20/2005 : 10:53:47 [Permalink]
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To follow up on my previous post, the Biwat, Chambri, and Arapesh of Papua New Guinea are examples of how gender roles are more nurture than nature.
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/mead/field-sepik.html
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Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 01/20/2005 : 11:05:16 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Valiant Dancer
[Yes, I am confident in it. There are some societies which have different gender roles that are counter to the ones we know. It appears that this particular aspect is primarily nurture, not nature.
Which ones? Are there societies were the engineers are 95% women? |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 01/20/2005 : 12:39:40 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by astropin
quote:
Originally posted by Valiant Dancer
[Yes, I am confident in it. There are some societies which have different gender roles that are counter to the ones we know. It appears that this particular aspect is primarily nurture, not nature.
Which ones? Are there societies were the engineers are 95% women?
The follow up post details three societies where gender roles are not the norm that we know of. The Chambri is an example where men are more emotional and females are more managerial and impersonal. (The reverse of western gender roles) |
Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
Posted - 01/20/2005 : 12:43:00 [Permalink]
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Let's look at the historical background.
Women, thoroughout the history, have had the function of taking care of kids, raising family, staying home. Tasks that create the image of soft, sweet, emotional woman, while the man takes charge of the 'hard work'.
Well, that may or may not be true. But from all girl friends I have, most of them do play the role of sensitive, emotional woman who must study something humane and emotional because that's what is expected of them. Only I had the guts to throw myself into the wilderness, and I see the reaction everyday. I'm labelled from genius to downright crazy (not that I don't like it I like kicking butt, hehe). Especially when I tell them that what I really wanted was Astronomy...
I'm not the only girl in my class, but I'm the only doing it for taste, not for money (it's a growing field here, it pays really well). My mother, too, has a taste for math; life wasn't nice to her, so she's only highschool (and a technical one, not the full thing), but she's good at it. So is my sister.
Maybe its genetics. Maybe not. But heck if I love it. |
"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa
"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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| Edited by - Siberia on 01/20/2005 12:44:57 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 01/20/2005 : 14:49:05 [Permalink]
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Some roles are predicated by nature. All the rest, I think, are societal.
Certainly any role that uses intelligence as a determining factor for who can fill the role is purely societal.
Some roles, many are outmoded by modern society and technology, are predicated by nature. Like providing for a family, and caring for infants. Historically women cared for the children because they are physiologicaly set up for it, to provide nutrition for newborns, ect.. and they are not exactly good at providing when carrying a child inside. Men are, in most cases, stronger and have greater stamina than women, making them more suited to the role of hunting/gathering/providing/ect..
But beyond those basic concepts I think the determination of roles is almost entirely cultural/societal.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 01/20/2005 : 16:05:09 [Permalink]
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| Regardless of numbers, I am a woman and I have a very good natural ability in math. And, Siberia apparently does as well. So until someone finds the gene on the Y chromosome, or shows how higher levels of testosterone or other hormone differences in men and women result in differing brain structures that specifically affect math abilities, I ain't buying the 'natural' part. Socially, maybe, but not inherently. |
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